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animal eaters

Humans are naturally plant-eaters

according to the best evidence: our bodies

by Michael Bluejay • June 2002 • Updated July 2012

A fair look at the evidence shows that humans are optimized for eating mostly or exclusively plant foods, according to the best evidence: our bodies. We’re most similar to other plant-eaters, and drastically different from carnivores and true omnivores.1,2,3 Those who insist that humans are omnivores, especially if their argument is based on canine teeth, would do well to look at what the evidence actually shows. We’ll cover that below.

I first wrote this article many years ago, but since then Milton Mills, M.D. published an excellent paper which covers the anatomy of eating, so let’s skip right to my table-ized summary of his research:

The details are in Mills’ paper (PDF). The rest of this article covers mostly angles not in that paper.

Summary of this article

The anatomical evidence tells us that we’re optimized for eating mostly or exclusively plant foods. The only way to come to another conclusion is to ignore the bulk of the anatomical evidence, which is what my critics do. (They either use inferior evidence, such as disputed assumptions about the prehistoric diet, or they cherry-pick the anatomical evidence while ignoring the bulk of it.)

Most plant-eaters eat small amounts of non-plant foods, usually insects (either intentionally or inadvertently). Critics of this article zero in on this tiny non-plant consumption as though they’ve made some sort of point. The small non-plant consumption of plant-eating animals doesn’t mean that they’re “omnivores” in the classical sense, and certainly doesn’t justify the idea that humans are adapted to a mixed diet of plant and non-plant foods.

“Omnivore” doesn’t mean 50% plants and 50% animals. Many of my critics consider chimpanzees to be omnivores but 95-99% of their diet is plants, and most of the rest isn’t meat, it’s termites. If humans are omnivores, then the anatomical evidence suggests that we’re the same kind: the kind that eats almost exclusively plant foods.

The animals most similar to us, the other primates, eat an almost exclusively vegan diet.

Saying we’re omnivores because we’re capableof eating meat is just silly. We’re capable of eating cardboard, too. And by the “capable” argument, then cats are omnivores, since nearly every commercial cat food has plant ingredients. (Check the label.) Nobody would ever make the argument that cats are omnivores based on what they’re capable of eating. But they sure make that argument for humans, enthusiastically.

Our so-called “canine teeth” are “canine” in name only. Other plant-eaters (like gorillas, horses, and hippos) have “canines”, and chimps, who are almost exclusively vegan, have massive canines compared to ours. (See picture below.)

Our early ancestors from at least four million years ago were almost exclusively vegetarian. (source, article #5)

Among animals, plant-eaters have the longest lifespans, and humans are certainly in that category (and yes, this was true even before modern medicine).

We sleep about the same amount of time as other herbivores, and less than carnivores and true omnivores.

The most common cause of choking deaths is eating meat. (source) Real carnivores and omnivores don’t have that problem.

Looking at the evidence fairly

The meat-eating reader already has half a dozen objections to this before s/he’s even read the rest of the article, and I will address those objections specifically, but first let me address them generally: It’s human nature to want to feel that what we’re doing is right, proper, and logical. When we’re confronted with something that suggests that our current practices are not the best ones, it’s uncomfortable. We can either consider that our choices may not have been the best ones, which is extremely disturbing, or we can reject that premise without truly considering it, so that we don’t have to feel bad about our actions. That’s the more comfortable approach. And we do this by searching our minds for any arguments we can for why the challenge must be wrong, to justify our current behavior. This practice is so common psychologists have a name for it: cognitive dissonance.

While we prefer to believe we act on reason, a formidable amount of psychological research shows the opposite: Often to usually, our actions aren’t based on our arguments. Rather, our actions come first and then we come up with the arguments to try to support those actions. If we were truly logical, we’d consider the evidence first and then decide the best course of action. But often we have it in reverse, because it’s too difficult to accept that we might have been wrong.

This is particularly true when it comes to vegetarianism. It’s easy to identify because the anti-vegetarian arguments are usually so extreme, compared to other kinds of discourse. A person who would never normally suggest something so fantastic as the idea that plants can think and feel pain, will suddenly all but lunge for such an argument when they feel a need to justify their meat-eating. That’s psychology for you.I used to be in the same position as most readers probably are now. Long ago my eating habits were challenged by a book I ran across in the library. I didn’t want to consider it fairly, because I wanted to keep eating meat. I’d grown up eating it, and I liked it. So I came up with various weak defenses to justify my behavior. But deep down I knew I was kidding myself, and practicing a form of intellectual cowardice. Eventually I knew I had to consider the arguments honestly.

So I challenge you: stop trying to figure out ways that I “must” be wrong even before you’ve bothered to read the rest of this article. Instead, read it, and actually consider it rather than reflexively trying to come out with ways to dismiss it out of hand. You can certainly still disagree after you’ve considered all the evidence—but not before. (Most of my critics miss that point, presenting arguments that are already addressed here in the article, had they bothered to read it.)

Most meat-eating readers will find it necessary to try to defeat me, at least in their minds, so let’s agree that that would mean providing more and better evidence for your position. One does not win the argument by making a single point, as most of the critics who email me seem to think. The evidence favoring a plant diet for humans is clear, convincing, and overwhelming. There is definitely some evidence for the other side, to be sure, but it’s simply not nearly as strong. While that ought to be obvious, I mention it because my critics seem to believe that whoever makes the fewest and weakest points has presented the most convincing case. They somehow seem to believe that all the evidence I present somehow vanishes into thin air when they present their lone argument.

In graphical form, it goes like this:

Evidence that humans are primarily plant-eaters

Many believe that lunging at at the minority of evidence in the red box makes their position compelling. But it doesn’t. The only way to make that position compelling is to present more and better evidence, not to pretend that the green box doesn’t exist.

The most common counter-arguments

“Humans have canine teeth. End of story.”

The truth is our so-called “canine teeth” are canine in name only. Humans’ “canine teeth” are unlike the canine teeth of actual canines, which are really long and really pointed. Our teeth are absolutely not like theirs. In fact, other vegetarian animals (like gorillas, horses, hippos, and chimpanzees) possess the same so-called “canine” teeth, which are often used for defensive purposes rather than for eating. Check out the chimpanzee picture at right, and consider that chimps’ diets are up to 99% vegetarian (and what litle non-vegetarian food they eat usually isn’t meat, it’s termites). And remember that we’re most similar to chimps than to any other animal.John A. McDougall, M.D., has a good take on this:

Our dentition evolved for processing starches, fruits, and vegetables, not tearing and masticating flesh. Our oft-cited “canine” teeth are not at all comparable to the sharp teeth of true carnivores. I lecture to over 10,000 dentists, dental hygienists, and oral specialists every year, and I always ask them to show me the “canine” teeth in a person’s mouth – those that resemble a cat’s or dog’s teeth – I am still waiting to be shown the first example of a sharply pointed canine tooth.
If you have any doubt of the truth of this observation then go look in the mirror right now – you may have learned to call your 4 corner front teeth, “canine teeth” – but in no way do they resemble the sharp, jagged, blades of a true carnivore – your corner teeth are short, blunted, and flat on top (or slightly rounded at most). Nor do they ever function in the manner of true canine teeth. Have you ever observed someone purposely favoring these teeth while tearing off a piece of steak or chewing it? Nor have I. The lower jaw of a meat-eating animal has very little side-to-side motion – it is fixed to open and close, which adds strength and stability to its powerful bite. Like other plant-eating animals our jaw can move forwards and backwards, and side-to-side, as well as open and close, for biting off pieces of plant matter, and then grinding them into smaller pieces with our flat molars.

I love the canine argument because the people who make it place so much importance on it, insisting that humans having canines immediately wins the whole argument, all by itself, case closed! But when they discover that they were wrong, then suddenly the canine issue really wasn’t so important to them after all, and they simply move on to their next misconception, as though their previous argument never happened. That really lays their motivations bare: They were never really interested in evaluating the evidence, they were only interested in being right. But really, if someone thinks that canine teeth are the be-all and end-all of the herbivore vs. omnivore debate, then when they find out that they’re wrong about teeth, that ought to tell them something. But does it ever? Nope. If you want an evidence of bias, there you have it.

“Humans have always eaten meat.”

No, we haven’t, and I’ll provide evidence for that shortly. More importantly, early humans, like modern humans, could have simply acted outside of instinct, and made interesting dietary choices contrary to their anatomy. We really have to look at our digestive system to get the best evidence for what we’re optimized for eating, not what some humans chose to eat. Otherwise, thousands of years from now anthropologists might conclude that eating McDonald’s is natural because humans circa 2012 used to eat a lot of it. Also, of early humans who did eat meat, they might have eaten it as sparingly as modern chimps do.

Okay, fine, then cats are omnivores, too. (“Case closed.”) Commercial cat foods, both wet and dry, contain things like rice, corn, and wheat. In fact, some people feed their cats a pure vegan diet with no meat at all. But of course, cats are true carnivores. We don’t call them omnivores just because they’ll eat things contrary to what nature intended. That would be silly. No one makes that argument for cats. But they make it for humans, enthusiastically. However, they can’t have it both ways: Either we don’t assume humans are omnivores just because we can eat meat, or we apply the same standard to other animals and conclude that cats are omnivores, too. Which is it?

“Humans are omnivores.”

“Omnivore” doesn’t mean 50% plants and 50% animals. Many consider chimpanzees to be omnivores but 95-99% of their diet is plants, and most of the rest isn’t meat, it’s termites. If humans are omnivores, then the anatomical evidence suggests that we’re the same kind: the kind that eats almost exclusively plant foods. And if an omnivore is an animal that is capable of eating both plants and animals, and ever does so, then sure, we’re omnivores, but then again, so are cats. (See above.) A true omnivore would have a body optimized for eating both plants and animals. With non-humans we can look at what they eat in the wild to figure out their preferred diets, but humans lost our instincts long ago, so we can look only at our anatomy and digestive systems. And that evidence is compelling.

“You’re not a credible source.”

You don’t have to believe me, you can look at the evidence I cite. My critics are acting as though I claim this article to be original research, but really, I’m just reporting on what the science says, citing a plethora of credible sources along the way.
It’s funny, my critics think I’m not allowed to speak without credentials, but somehow they don’t need any themselves in order to argue the contrary position. For example, when Internet forums discuss whether meat-eating is natural, someone will undoubtedly lunge at the “canines = meat-eater” argument, then someone else will point them to this article where I explain that other plant-eaters have larger canines than ours, then the canine guy will all but shriek, “Bluejay isn’t a credible source! He has no formal training!” As though the critic has a Ph.D in biology. And as though my own lack of credentials means than gorillas, horses, and hippos don’t have large canine teeth. The critics don’t think they need any special training to make (wrong) pronouncements about human canines, for example, but anyone who dares disagree with their misinformed assumptions had better be a bona-fide expert.
What matters is the evidence, and I cite my sources. If the critics have better evidence, rather than pulling pronouncements about canine teeth out of the ether, they’d do well to present it, rather than just dismiss evidence they don’t like out of hand.By the way, doctors like John McDougall and Milton R. Mills (both M.D.’s) believe that human anatomy favors plant foods. I wonder whether the people who send me hate mail about this article and tell me I’m an idiot would feel just as confident in telling these two doctors that the doctors are idiots, too?

“Vitamin B12. End of story.”

I’m not joking when I tack on “End of story” to the sample counter-arguments. People actually make them that way, literally. Here again, they think one point invalidates all other evidence. Amazing. The argument here is that since B12 isn’t found in plant foods and modern vegans must supplement, a vegan diet can’t be natural. Here’s what’s wrong with that argument:

B12 isn’t made by animals, it’s made by bacteria. (source) It’s found in animal foods because they’re a hotbed of bacterial activity. It’s also found in feces of most species. Historically it was easier for vegans to get B12 because their environment was so dirty. Plants pulled from the ground and not washed scrupulously could have bacterial contamination, and thus B12. (source)

Remember that “plant-eaters” aren’t exclusively plant-eaters; they eat some small amounts of non-plant foods. For example, of the 1-5% of chimps’ diets that aren’t plants, most is generally termites, which happen to be loaded with B12. (source)

We saw that fecal matter contaminating the environment can provide B12. But not taking any chances, many plant-eating animals actually eat their own feces. Prehistoric humans might have done the same. (Human feces is loaded with B12.) (source)

Because the ability to absorb B12 decreases with age, the Food and Nutrition board says that all people over 50 should eat B12-fortified food or take B12 supplements, not just vegans. (source)

So the idea that our bodies are designed to eat large amounts of meat because of a single vitamin made by bacteria isn’t very compelling.

In any event, there’s no question that modern vegans must take a B12 supplement, recommended at least weekly. (source) No plant food is a reliable source, and most fermented products (like tempeh) which list B12 on the Nutrition Facts actually don’t have any, because the FDA mandates the wrong test for B12. (source)

“Other primates eat meat.”

Hardly. Various sources (below) say that a chimp’s diet is 95-99% plant foods, and the primary non-plant food isn’t meat, it’s termites. We also have to remember that primates are intelligent and can make choices outside of instinct, just like humans do, so the tiny amount of meat they might eat could simply be due to choice, not instinct. The idea that primates are a good example for why humans should eat meat evidently didn’t impress the most famous primate researcher of all time, Jane Goodall. Goodall is a vegetarian.
I cover the primate diet in more detail bolew.

“You’re not considering evolution.”

Of course I’m not. Humans’ hunting skills are relatively recent in our history but evolution takes place over a much longer period of time. In short, we haven’t been hunting for long enough for our anatomy to favor a mixed plant-animal diet.

But haven’t humans always eaten a lot of meat?

In a word, no, which we’ll discuss in a moment, but first there’s something more important: Even if they did, it doesn’t matter. That’s because people act by idea rather than by instinct. Other animals are programmed to know what food is. We are not. For us, it’s learned behavior. Or in some cases, guessed behavior. We can make choices about what we should eat even if that’s contrary to good health, as millions prove every day when they eat at McDonald’s. If our ancestors ate meat, they were simply being human and making choices rather than acting on instinct. Think about it: Do you really believe that cavemen were true experts about nutrition? If so, what other major decisions about your life would you like to put in the hands of a caveman?

The best evidence is to look at our own bodies. If we’d really been eating a lot of meat for a long time, that would be reflected in our anatomy, and it’s not. But let’s return to the assumption that our ancestors did eat a lot of meat. I can’t think of a better example of a case in which people believe something to be true just because they assume it is. We all grew up thinking that our predecessors were meat-eaters, but where did we get that idea? Is it true just because it’s part of our collective consciousness? More importantly, what does the evidence say?

John A. McDougall, M.D., perhaps the most knowledgable expert on the relationship between diet and disease, asserts that our early ancestors from at least four million years ago followed diets almost exclusively of plant foods. (source, article #5) Many other scientists believe that early humans were largely vegetarian. (See articles by Grande & Leckie and Derek Wall.) Then there’s this research:

Robert W. Sussman, Ph.D., professor anthropology in Arts & Sciences, spoke at a press briefing, “Early Humans on the Menu,” during the American Association for the Advancement of the Science’s Annual Meeting….[E]arly man was not an aggressive killer, Sussman argues. He poses a new theory, based on the fossil record and living primate species, that primates have been prey for millions of years, a fact that greatly influenced the evolution of early man. “Our intelligence, cooperation and many other features we have as modern humans developed from our attempts to out-smart the predator,” says Sussman…. The idea of “Man the Hunter” is the generally accepted paradigm of human evolution, says Sussman, “It developed from a basic Judeo-Christian ideology of man being inherently evil, aggressive and a natural killer. In fact, when you really examine the fossil and living non-human primate evidence, that is just not the case.”

Sussman’s research is based on studying the fossil evidence dating back nearly seven million years. “Most theories on Man the Hunter fail to incorporate this key fossil evidence,” Sussman says. “We wanted evidence, not just theory. We thoroughly examined literature available on the skulls, bones, footprints and on environmental evidence, both of our hominid ancestors and the predators that coexisted with them.” …

But what Sussman and Hart discovered is that Australopithecus afarensis was not dentally pre-adapted to eat meat. “It didn’t have the sharp shearing blades necessary to retain and cut such foods,” Sussman says. “These early humans simply couldn’t eat meat. If they couldn’t eat meat, why would they hunt?”

It was not possible for early humans to consume a large amount of meat until fire was controlled and cooking was possible. Sussman points out that the first tools didn’t appear until two million years ago. And there wasn’t good evidence of fire until after 800,000 years ago.

While some prehistoric peoples hunted animals, that is still a relatively recent development in the long period of human existence. Certainly not long enough for our bodies to have adapted to it from evolution. Here’s some evidence: The Maasai in Kenya, who still eat a diet high in wild hunted meats, have the worst life expectancy in the world. (Fuhrman)

In any event, the idea that our ancestors might have decided to mimic other animals and eat more meat isn’t a particularly compelling argument that it’s natural for us to do so. Given that humans act outside of instinct, looking at historical behavior isn’t as convincing as looking at anatomy and health effects—as we’ll do in a moment.

Considering the other primates

Our closest animal relatives are, of course, the other primates. They provide clues about our ideal diet since our anatomy is so similar. Very few of them eat any significant amount of animals, and those who do typically mostly stick to things like insects, not cows, pigs, and chickens. Jane Goodall, famous for her extensive study of apes while living with them, found that it was very rare for the primates she saw to eat other animals. Critics lunge all over the fact that Goodall discovered that primates occasionally eat meat. But the key word here is occasionally. If we ate meat is infrequently as the other primates did, our health would certainly be a lot better. Goodall herself apparently wasn’t impressed by primates’ occasional eating of meat: Jane Goodall herself is a vegetarian.

Chimpanzee: Eats 95-99% plants, and most of the rest is termites (not meat). (Source: Creative Commons)

How slight is the other primates’ animal consumption? This article on primate eating habits from Harvard has a bar graph of all the things that chimps and monkeys eat (Fig. 3), and meat isn’t even in the chart. What they do eat is fruit, seeds, leaves, flowers, and pith. There is a category called “Miscellaneous”, which for most species amounts to less than 5% of their diet, and for chimps and redtail monkeys less than 1%. The Honolulu Zoo gives a slighty higher figure, saying that non-plant consumption is 5% of a chimp’s diet, but this includes their main non-plant food, termites. (Termites are a good source of vitamin B12, by the way). Craig B. Stanford, Ph.D says, “Chimpanzees are largely fruit eaters, and meat composes only about 3% of the time they spent eating overall, less than in nearly all human societies.” (source) Any way you slice it, their diet is at least 95-99% plants.Which brings up another point: The people who hysterically scream at me that chimps are omnivores, besides ignoring that chimps’ meat consumption is so small as to be virtually non-existent, never acknowledge that the non-plant foods chimps eat are not the same things humans eat. Chimps do not eat cattle and chickens. And humans don’t eat termites. The idea that the meat-laden American diet can be justified because chimps may eat a whopping 5% of non-plant foods, none of it cattle or chickens, and much of it termites, is rather silly.

Let’s use the Harvard article’s figure for chimps and round it up to a generous 1%. If that were beef—which it is not — how much beef would that be? For an adult human, a mere 8 grams a day (about 1/3 of an ounce, or just 0.02 pounds). That’s about 1/9th of a medium carrot. Get a carrot, cut it into nine pieces, and each piece then represents the amount of meat you could eat every day to have your diet match that of a chimp. Yes, there you have chimps’ overwhelming “omnivorism”.

Here’s how another writer put it:

“Meat makes up only 1.4% of [chimps’] diet which in any statistical study or analysis would be considered as quantitatively unimportant. In longitudinal studies it has been found that 90% of all kills were by males and as the females rarely hunt they receive a share in return by begging only after she allows him to mate with her…. On rare occasions chimps do eat and kill a baby chimp. So if you follow this argument to its conclusion, humans should kill and eat their babies, meat should only make up 1.4% of the human diet, [and] females should only receive meat by begging for it and allowing the giver to mate with her!” (source)

Consider also that even though primates eat meat sparingly, there again it’s likely because they’re intelligent and like humans are able to make choices to act outside of instinct. As other writers put it, “While chimpanzees are known to kill, this behaviour is not necessarily dietary but ritualistic.” In 2006 the journal Nature published research about how chimpanzees have culture—behaviors copied from peers rather than being genetic. (See “Case Closed: Apes Got Culture“.)

Eugene Khutoryansky who does believe that eating meat is natural, still cautions that the implications of chimps’ killing should give us pause:

Eating meat is indeed natural in the sense that other animals do it as well. In fact, it is even done on occasion by our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees. However, there are many other things which are also natural. For example, chimpanzee males sometimes rape the females in their tribe. Chimpanzees sometimes engage in organized warfare against other tribes with which they compete for territory. A chimpanzee male, in a moment of rage, sometimes picks up a nearby infant, and crushes his skull against a rock. And chimpanzees do on occasion eat meat, and they do on occasion engage in cannibalism, in spite of the fact that there is a plentiful supply of food from other sources.So eating meat is indeed absolutely natural. However, the fact that it is natural does not imply that it is ethically permissible. If we believed that eating meat was ethically permissible simply because other animals did it as well, then this would imply that there is nothing wrong with rape, cannibalism, or infanticide, all of which routinely occurs throughout the animal kingdom. (source)

What it means to be an omnivore

There is no question that humans are capable of digesting meat. But just because we can digest animals does not mean we’re supposed to, or that it will be good for us. We can digest cardboard. But that doesn’t mean we should. As I mentioned earlier, commercial cat foods typically contain rice, corn, and wheat. But of course, cats are true carnivores. We don’t call them omnivores just because they’ll eat things contrary to what nature intended. That would be silly. No one makes that argument for cats. But they make it for humans, enthusiastically.

McDougall explains how the ability to digest animal foods didn’t hurt our survival as a race, although it takes a toll on our lifespan:

“Undoubtedly, all of these [meat-containing] diets were adequate to support growth and life to an age of successful reproduction. To bear and raise offspring you only need to live for 20 to 30 years, and fortuitously, the average life expectancy for these people was just that. The few populations of hunter-gatherers surviving into the 21st Century are confined to the most remote regions of our planet—like the Arctic and the jungles of South America and Africa—some of the most challenging places to manage to survive. Their life expectancy is also limited to 25 to 30 years and infant mortality is 40% to 50%. Hunter-gatherer societies fortunately did survive, but considering their arduous struggle and short lifespan, I would not rank them among successful societies.”

The problem with the term “omnivore” is that it’s used in different ways. Many folks assert that if a primate ever eats any meat at all, no matter how small or insignificant, then bam! — they’re an omnivore. But cats eat copious amounts of rice, corn, and wheat in commercial cat food, and have far more plants in their diet than meat in primates’ diets. So why do these people insist that the piddling, insignificant amount of animal foods consumed by primates makes them omnivores, while cats are carnivores no matter how much plant food they eat?

And once they (think) they’ve shown that primates are omnivores, they then use this “fact” to justify the huge amount of meat that people eat today. This of course is ridiculous.

A more reasonable definition would be that a true omnivore would routinely eat large quantities of both plants and animals. A creature consuming less than 5% of its calories from animals just doesn’t seem very omnivorous to me. (This includes other primates, our ancestors, and traditional Okinawans.) But for the record, if you insist that such creatures are omnivores, then I’ll agree with you — as long as you agree that humans should also eat less than 5% of our calories from animals, just like the other creatures you’re basing our “omnivorism” on. And that cats are omnivores, too.

Humans lack a desire to eat whole animals

True carnivores (and omnivores) salivate about the idea of eating whole prey animals when they see them. Humans do not. We’re interested in eating the body parts only because they’ve been removed from the original animal and processed, and because we grew up eating them, making it seem perfectly normal. It’s amazing how much of a disconnect we’ve been able to learn about the difference between animals and food. As GoVeg puts it:

While carnivores take pleasure in killing animals and eating their raw flesh, any human who killed an animal with his or her bare hands and dug into the raw corpse would be considered deranged. Carnivorous animals are aroused by the scent of blood and the thrill of the chase. Most humans, on the other hand, are revolted by the sight of raw flesh and cannot tolerate hearing the screams of animals being ripped apart and killed. The bloody reality of eating animals is innately repulsive to us, more proof that we were not designed to eat meat.Ask yourself: When you see dead animals on the side of the road, are you tempted to stop for a snack? Does the sight of a dead bird make you salivate? Do you daydream about killing cows with your bare hands and eating them raw? If you answered “no” to all of these questions, congratulations–you’re a normal human herbivore–like it or not. Humans were simply not designed to eat meat. Humans lack both the physical characteristics of carnivores and the instinct that drives them to kill animals and devour their raw carcasses.

Cats are obligate carnivores (they must live on a diet primarily of meat) and their taste buds reflect this by having abandoned the tongue sensors that respond to sweet-tasting carbohydrates. Dogs are omnivores (they have retained both kinds of taste buds) those enjoying carbohydrates and amino acids. Humans tongues respond pleasurably to sweet (carbohydrates), but have lost the taste for amino acids, placing us undeniably in the category of herbivores (plant eaters). Many of your friends and family are confused, thinking people are omnivores, needing both meat and plants in their diet. We only appear to be omnivorous because we have the ability to “doctor up” meat with salt and sauces (barbecue, sweet and sour, marinara, etc.) sufficiently enough to make it palatable. Prove this for yourself. The next person you meet head-on who claims meat is “tasty,” stop him in his tracks and insist that he eat a large plate of plain, unseasoned, boiled beef or boiled chicken in front of you ; note their displeasure. Then offer that same meal to the dog or cat and note how eagerly this critter devours the meat. You would be hard-pressed to find a person who did not enjoy a bowl of perfect, ripe bananas, but try to get your cat to eat this sweet food. I have a Rottweiler dog named Bodega who is a true omnivore and enjoys bananas as much as meat. A careful observer notices that an animal’s taste buds are no mistake of nature—they clearly define the proper diet that the animal should eat.

Comparing humans to other animals

Human physiology is strikingly similar to that of other plant-eaters, and quite unlike that of carnivores. It is telling that in none of the missives that readers have sent in to argue with me do they ever deny the data in the following table. They simply think that by making some other point (e.g., that humans possess canine teeth) that somehow obliterates the more convincing data in the table. This is the same table presented at the beginning, but it’s important enough that it bears repeating.

As another writer said, “The human body was not designed to catch or eat animals. You have no claws. Your teeth do not rend flesh. Your mouth can not seriously wound nor is it made to really get a good bite into an struggling victim like true carnivores can. You are not fit to run fast to catch prey. Meat-eaters have fast enough reflexes to ambush or overtake a victim. You do not. Try catching a pig or a chicken with your bare hands; see what happens.”

Plant-eaters have the longest lifespans

In general, plant-eating creatures have the longest lifespans. Elephants, horses, and chimpanzees are at the top of the list while lions, tigers, and wolves are about half that. Humans’ lifespans are even longer than the elephants etc. (even before modern medicine), providing more evidence that we’re in the plant-eating camp.

We sleep like herbivores

Carnivores sleep the most, herbivores the least, and omnivores in the middle. Guess which group our own sleep correlates to. Here are some charts from an article in Nature (PDF). They have arbitrarily stuck us (and other primates) in the omnivore group, because that’s what everyone assumes we are, but notice that we’re at the extreme end of that chart, with nearly every other single omnivore sleeping more than we do. We fit nicely in the herbivore chart, and I added a prominent dot for us in that one so you can see how we fit in at eight hours a night. If we use a figure of 6-7 hours a night (suggested as natural by longevity research), our placement in the chart becomes even more compelling.

“But what about canine teeth and binocular vision?”

It’s part of our collective consciousness that we have “canine teeth” and that this “proves” that we’re meat eaters. But the truth is that this argument couldn’t be weaker.

Canine teeth are canine in name only. Humans’ so-called “canine teeth” are unlike the canine teeth of actual canines, which are really long and really pointed. Our teeth are absolutely not like theirs. In fact, other vegetarian animals (like gorillas and horses) possess the same so-called “canine” teeth.

Overall, our teeth resemble those of plant-eaters much more than meat-eaters. For example, we have molar teeth (plant-eaters do, carnivores don’t). Try to find a human-type molar inside your cat’s mouth. Our teeth can also move side to side to grind, just like the other plant-eaters, and completely unlike the carnivores. Their jaws go only up and down.

My favorite quote from when someone brought up the canine rationalization on a message board:

“Hey Julia–we evolved with canine teeth? I’d like to see you tackle a steer and tear it apart with those ferocious incisors.”

What’s funny to me is how the teeth argument is so important to meat proponents when they make their point about canine teeth, and then as soon as they find out that our teeth are much more similar to those of herbivores than of carnivores, and therefore consideration of our teeth suggests that we’re designed to be plant eaters — suddenly what kind of teeth we have is not so important to them after all.

Others have argued that predators have eyes on the front of their heads for binocular vision, while prey animals have eyes on the sides, indicating that we fall into the predator camp. This ignores the fact that the animals that we’re most similar to — the other primates — have eyes on the front of their heads, and are almost exclusively vegetarian. It’s also important to remember what I said at the top of this article: There is certainly evidence on both sides of this debate, but the preponderance of evidence clearly shows that we’re suited to eating plants almost exclusively.

Does the unhealthfulness of meat mean that it’s not natural?

The medical evidence is overwhelming: The more animal foods we eat, the more heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and other degenerative disease we suffer. This has been exhaustively demonstrated beyond any doubt. Dean Ornish, M.D. showed that heart disease can be reversed, and he did so by feeding his patients a vegetarian diet. John McDougall, M.D. has also written extensively about how animal foods cause disease, and how for 25 years he’s helped patients regain their health by eating unprocessed vegan foods instead. The science journals are filled with articles that come to the same conclusion: more plants means better health, more animals foods means more illness. And as mentioned earlier, the Maasai in Kenya, who still eat a diet high in wild hunted meats, have the worst life expectancy in the world. (Fuhrman)

But is this evidence that meat-eating is unnatural? Maybe so, but maybe not. On the one hand we expect that’s what’s natural for us to eat should keep us in the best health (and that would discount meat, at least in the amounts it would take to make us true omnivores). But on the other hand, people can certainly live well beyond their reproductive years on a mixed animal-plant diet, which is mostly what evolution cares about. So it’s hard to say whether the unhealthfulness of meat is evidence that we’re naturally plant-eaters, but then again, we have other, better evidence anyway. The best evidence that we’re supposed to eat primarily plants is the obvious one: our anatomy.

Human performance on meat-free diets

Not only do vegetarians and vegans easily build muscle, they often excel as athletes too, winning Olympic gold medals and world championships. In fact, some of the most famous bodybuilders in history were vegetarian. Here’s a list of vegan and vegetarian athletes.

Examples of successful vegetarian and vegan athletes

(Note: As of July 2012, I’ve stopped adding to this list, because I’ve made my point that there are numerous vegans who among the top athletes in their sports. The number of vegetarian and vegan athletes is growing rapidly now and there’s no way I’ll be able to keep up with all the new ones.)

Jane Ward, M.D. Described herself as mostly vegan at a presentation I attended in March 2012. At age 60 in 2012, in the last four years she completed over 10 triathlons including a Half-Ironman, and is also a veteran of over 8 marathons and the 24 hour/50 mile Caledonian Challenge in Scotland.

Michael Bluejay. I’m listing myself not because I’m an elite athlete (I’m not), but just to show that I put my money where my mouth is. As a vegan, I used to run marathons, and before a knee injury ruined my running career, my half-marathon time put me in the top 22% of male runners my age. After my injury, I started doing handcycle marathons. I won the handcycle division of the 2012 Austin Marathon, but there were no other entrants in my division. I hope to win next year’s race against actual competition.

The research on veg vs. non-veg athletes is fairly sparse, but what does exist has failed to show any clear performance benefit for meat-eaters. (See my separate article, Protein and Strength.)

Summary

Human anatomy is much more similar to herbivores than carnivores.

If humans are omnivores because we’re capableof eating meat, then so are cats, since most cats eat plant foods every day. If we’re supposed to eat animal foods, the evidence suggests it’s a tiny part of our diets, not a large one.

Making one contrary point does not magically invalidate all the other evidence as soon as it’s made.

There is no need to argue with me about this. If you feel otherwise, let’s just agree to disagree. I’ve received a ton of email on this issue, none of it illuminating, most of it badly misspelled, and I simply don’t have the time nor desire to debate everyone in the world who wants to argue with me. If I did that, I would be doing it full time. And trust me, I have definitely heard every argument. (I stopped hearing genuinely new arguments approximately 21 years ago.) If you feel so strongly about your position that you absolutely must make it known, then simply do what I did: Put up your own web page espousing your own views. You can be confident that I will not write to you to argue about what you have written.

My favourite verse from the bible on this issue is:
“Ezekiel Chapter 47 Verse 12
12.) And by the river upon the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed: it shall bring forth new fruit according to his months, because their waters they issued out of the sanctuary: and the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine.”

Here are a couple of others, and they all seem to be AGAINST the consumption of animal products to me. Am I missing something here???????? *checking the colour of my hair*

I remember watching Rabbi Paul Nison, who is a raw food advocate, his book THE RAW LIFE has already some souls I have lent it to, say the greatest PROPER NUTRITION ever written is the bible. Go figure.

“ISAIAH ! verse15:
And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.

Isaiah 66:3.
New International Version (NIV). 3 But whoever sacrifices a bull is like one who kills a person, and whoever offers a lamb is like one who breaks a …

Romans 14:20-23
King James Version (KJV)
20 For meat destroy not the work of God. All things indeed are pure; but it is evil for that man who eateth with offence.
21 It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.

Proverbs 15:17 Translations
King James Version (KJV)
Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.
American King James Version (AKJV)
Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.
Romans 14:21

New Living Translation (NLT)
21 It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything else if it might cause another believer to stumble.

Daniel 1 verses 11 – 16
11 So Daniel said to the steward[a] whom the chief of the eunuchs had set over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, 12 “Please test your servants for ten days, and let them give us vegetables to eat and water to drink. 13 Then let our appearance be examined before you, and the appearance of the young men who eat the portion of the king’s delicacies; and as you see fit, so deal with your servants.” 14 So he consented with them in this matter, and tested them ten days.
15 And at the end of ten days their features appeared better and fatter in flesh than all the young men who ate the portion of the king’s delicacies. 16 Thus the steward took away their portion of delicacies and the wine that they were to drink, and gave them vegetables.

Genesis 1:26-31
New International Version (NIV)
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earthand subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

Isaiah 7:14-15
New King James Version (NKJV)
14 Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.[a] 15 Curds and honey He shall eat, that He may know to refuse the evil and choose the good.”